Today was, without a doubt, a great day verging on perfect. It was hot, the blue skies were deep and I bore witness to the indubitable arrival of summer. The grass was trim, my twelve ‘Madame Lemoine’ lilacs saturated the air of the formal fragrance garden, the peonies and iris waited with bated breath to bloom, and I could almost see the rest of the plants, bushes and trees grow without benefit of a stop-motion camera. Lush, fecund and heavy.
Harleys and touring bikes, with radios blaring, paraded through the village non- stop today, playing hooky, no doubt, from more mundane tasks like work. A couple of stellar jays worked on their nest in the maple tree, a woodpecker kept me company with his tap-tap-tap, the robins scrutinized the water in the birdbath, and the cats hid amongst the greenery, keeping tabs on their favourite chipmunk friend.
I planned to finish planting the potager today, to wrap up the basic necessities and clean and fill the outdoor clawfoot bathing tub with water from my neighbours’ natural spring. And I managed some of that until the much-anticipated dumpster arrived for its twenty-four hour sojourn in the back lane. On went the work boots and off I went to work shovelling, carting and hand-picking through all the construction debris from my winter’s work. I had already sorted, re-used, given away or piled for future use any of the usable materials. What I was left with was smelly, wet, heavy, mouldy masonry materials, drywall and animal-stained insulation that came out of the loft in the carriage house. Yuck.
Luckily I love my shovel and wheelbarrow as much as I love my carpentry tools so I happily to-and-fro’ed all afternoon, sweating profusely. Husband and I, comfortably ensconced in Adirondack chairs, enjoyed a tall g&t on the lawn precisely at two o’clock.
After school, we walked down to the beach with the kids for the first swim of the season. The river is still too high and swift by our house, but another couple of weeks of this kind of heat and it will be just about right. Husband’s homework assignment for the day was to price out a floating dock so that when the water’s just right we’ll be (hopefully) ready. It’s days like today that I most miss our old General Store, sitting on benches, eating ice cream with the kids, chatting with neighbours and watching the everyday world unfold.
Tonight the river was like glass and would have made for a great canoe. I didn’t care if the mosquitoes were biting, it was the piece de resistance to putz around outside with my littlest Caboose until the light finally waned around nine.
There is little to compare in life to the simple newness of early summer and the long-awaited warming of one’s bones after a cold winter and a wet spring. Can’t wait to do the whole thing over again tomorrow.